Born in 1931, to Greek immigrants in Massachusetts, Olympia Dukakis began her career on stage, performing in Shakespeare and repertory companies, before making her Broadway debut at the age of 30. Though little success came her way at first, she found her home Off-Broadway on the smaller, more intimate stages, winning Obie and Drama Desk Awards for her work, winning acclaim in productions of The Rose Tattoo, The Seagull and A Man’s a Man, to name a few. In 1973, she and her husband founded the Whole Theater Company in Montclair, New Jersey, which they ran until 1988. It was during that late 80s period, that she finally made her mark on movies. Having appeared in small parts all the way back to the early 60s, she landed the role of Cher’s mother in Norman Jewison’s Moonstruck, beautifully, subtly underplaying the role to great impact, she won a Supporting Actress Oscar, for a breakthrough role at the age of 57. Since then, she has established herself as a regular working movie actress in projects as varied as Steel Magnolias, Mighty Aphrodite and Mr. Holland’s Opus, as well as a standout turn amongst the wonderful ensemble of Sarah Polley’s Away From Her. Along with her newfound cinematic success, she works regularly on TV and has never abandoned the stage, where at the age of 77, she still performs AND directs.

The Dude;

Ewan McGregor.

Emerging in the mid 90s, during the era of Cool Brittania, as emerging director Danny Boyle’s leading man of choice, Ewan McGregor established himself as a sturdy young performer in Shallow Grave, before becoming nothing less than a 90s British icon following his strung out performance in 1996s Trainspotting. The following year, director and star, along with writer John Hodge and producer Andrew McDonald, attempted to make a mark on the US, with A Life Less Ordinary, though the film couldn’t be considered much more than an interesting failure, it opened the way for McGregor to land the role of the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas’ new Star Wars trilogy, and the international recognition that brought his way. Leading roles in creatively vibrant movies like Moulin Rouge!, Down with Love and Big Fish followed, but no matter how high his star has risen, McGregor has never abandoned his roots, with films like Young Adam and Scenes of a Sexual Nature bringing him back to the small, humble roots of Britain, and his global motorcycle adventures with friend Charley Boorman, Long Way Round and Long Way Down both stand as symbols of his desires, dreams and ambition beyond the screen. McGregor is an established Hollywood leading man, not afraid to take risks, not afraid to go back to basics, and effortlessly watchable with his easy, laidback charm.

The Director;

Michelangelo Antonioni.

Discovering drawing and music as a child, Michelangelo Antonioni took up the violin and gave his first concert at the age of 9, before abandoning the instrument upon discovery in his teens…of cinema. In his early 20s he began working as a film journalist for a local newspaper for 5 years, before moving to Rome where he began writing for the nationals official fascist film magazine, Cinema. After only a months he was fired, whereafter he attended the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, studying film technique, this was another chapter of his life that never took off, withdrawing just 3 months later. Through the early 40s he worked as assistant on numerous productions, where he met Roberto Rossellini and worked with Marcel Carne. In 1950 he directed his first feature, breaking the neorealist hold on Italian cinema and portraying the middle classes of society. He was not afraid to venture outside his own nation, making films in France and in England, even tually tackling the working classes in his work, social alienation prevalent throughout his movies. In 55 he had experimented with the style that came to prove his trademark, replacing conventional narrative with sequences of seemingly unconnected events, shooting in long takes, often with sparse use of dialogue. 1960s L’avventura played at the Cannes Film Festival to a wildly mixed reception, bringing the director to the international stage. He followed it up with the remaining two parts of a thematic trilogy, La Notte and L’eclisse seeing him work with major stars and further establish his reputation. Following this he left mainland Europe, travelling first to Britain where he produced his ode to the swinging 60s Blowup, signifying once more his refusal to rest on common ideas of plotting and reliance on dialogue, the film brought the director Oscar nominations for writing and directing, which saw him travel to America, where he turned out the duo Zabriskie Point, again following his trademark style and utlizing a soundtrack of popular hits, and then Jack Nicholson vehicle The Passenger. Afterwards he went back to Europe where he spent the rest of his careerworking mainly in his native language, producing features and segments in omnibus films. He continued working till he was 91, dying in 2007, at the age of 94.

The Picture;

Se7en (David Fincher, 1995)

At the age of 30, David Fincher had made his feature film debut as director of Alien 3, a film in which he went to war with 20th Century Fox over script and budget issues. It was at the time, the most expensive film ever made by a first time director, and as such, the restrictions put on him, were perhaps no surprise. With his second film, Fincher scaled all that grandiosity back, focusing his film around the well established Morgan Freeman, and rising stars Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow. Built around a righteous serial killer in an age when such a thing was unseen in cinema, Fincher’s gloomy meditation on the state of the world established him as a master of creating dark and vivid atmospheres. Gripping from the first to the last, not least when the uncredited killer finally walks onto screen, Se7en took serial killer movies to another level, proving both an…entertaining viewing experience, and a provocative, thought provoking piece of cinema, finding that ideal balance between being mainstream and uncompromising, it heralded the emergence of a major new talent at the forefront of the new wave of American moviemakers.